On Bike Riding and Writing

• Main Author: Ocampo, Maritza
• Format: Others
• Published: CSUSB ScholarWorks 2015
• Subjects: Fiction; Short Story; English; Craft; Voice; Writing; Creative Writing
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/213; https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1200&context=etd

What follows are the motivations and desires behind my writing and why I chose to pursue writing in the first place. This paper not only gives context to my creative stories, but it also functions as a self-portrait, a glimpse of the writer behind the text. In this paper, I speak of my experiences of growing up in a marginalized group, of being a daughter of Mexican immigrants and a member of the working class. I explain how those experiences helped shape the content and voice that I portray in my collection of short stories called, Somewhere Between Here and There. This collection of short stories emerged at the start of my graduate program but it was a project that was slowly accumulating over the years. The collection centers on the invisibility of a Latino community and dramatizes the challenges that they face as individuals and as a group. Many of my characters face challenges both at an individual and institutional level that causes fragmentation. In the end, each character tries to cope with their situation while trying to find and discover a sense of self and belonging in the world.